Discover the vibrant world of the Evolution Film Festival in Mallorca, founded by Sandra Lipski, who has been at the helm of this cultural celebration for 13 years. Each November, the festival showcases 150 films across seven stunning island locations, attracting both established stars and emerging filmmakers. In this engaging interview, Sandra and festival manager Marie Kalfat share insights into the festival's evolution, its significance in the European film landscape, and the unique community it fosters.

Highlights include memorable moments, such as the attendance of notable guests like Danny DeVito, and the festival's commitment to diversity and support for new talent. Join us as we explore the intersection of film, culture, and the picturesque backdrop of Mallorca, and learn how the festival continues to thrive and evolve.

For the past 13 years, Sandra Lipski has been the founder and producer of the Evolution Film Festival Mallorca, which brings together top stars, newcomer filmmakers, directors and people who love movies to the island of Mallorca every November. Find out how it all happened and some highlights from over the years of the festival in this interview with Sandra and her manager Maria Calafat.

The conversation delves into the festival's unique offerings, including its commitment to fostering new talent through initiatives like the students' section and debut film category. Lipski and festival manager Marie Kalfat emphasize the festival's role as a networking hub for emerging filmmakers, where creativity and collaboration flourish. This year’s festival promises an exciting mix of genres, including documentaries, features, and shorts, aligning with the festival's mission to celebrate diverse voices in cinema. As they explore the impact of local filmmaking on the island, the discussion touches on the various productions shot in Mallorca, underscoring the connection between the film industry and the island’s cultural landscape.

Today on Go Nomad we continue our four part series on the island of Mallorca, Spain with an interview with Sandra Lipski, the founder of the Evolution Film Festival.

Mallorca, beloved Mallorca.

What a perfect place for a film festival.

For 13 years, Sandra Lipski and her associates have produced the film festival every November.

And this year's festival will show 150 films in seven island locations.

Here's an interview with Sandra and the festival manager, Marie Kalfat, who is a local in Palma.

Over the years, what do you think the biggest get that you had was?

Well, what was really big that in our, I think sixth edition, Danny DeVito came and was our honorary guest.

That kind of put us on the map at European festivals and you know, festivals and also people in the industry took us more serious.

It always takes.

Isn't that funny?

All we have to do is show up and that changes the whole.

And he did.

Danny DeVito, he's always been a little distract, he's been a little famous.

He's done so sweet.

Did he have a connection to Harlem?

Well, actually, yes, because him and Michael Douglas are best friends.

They actually shared a room in college.

And also Danny DeVito was the director and producer of War and the Roses.

That Catherine Turner and Michael Starr.

But they did that movie together and many others.

People don't always know, like for example, Danny DeVito also produced Erin Brockovich, that he has his hands in a lot of things, but he keeps quiet about it, which is interesting.

So he actually stayed at Michael's house when he was here.

And so that's his connection, I guess.

Do you include anything about movies that were filmed here?

Because I know Morgan Freeman was here like what, August?

So last year we had the 10th anniversary of our.

It's called the Maid of Valhalla section.

So the Maid of Valhalla section will be screen films, any genre.

We have shorts, features, documentaries about films.

That have been shot here and how many her shot?

Well, it depends.

Every year a lot of documentaries.

Because local television has a big funding pot for documentaries.

That's pretty big.

Feature films usually are German, British, Scandinavian productions, even American productions that have been filmed partly or entirely here.

A lot of television.

The Crown that was filmed here.

Crown, the Night Manager, not the whole of the Crown.

It's art.

Yeah, it's all the movies, film shorts, whatever, that some of them actually have been worn in the festival and years later have been filmed in Balearies.

Because we are very proud to be a connection point, like a networking point for filmmakers and international Filmmakers also, we support a lot of the young talents.

We have students section, a new talent section, so a debut film section.

And what is cool about this festival is that there's this vibrant atmosphere of young people, very eager and very talented, that want to get together and do things.

And there are projects, things and good relationships that come out of this festival.

And we are very proud of it.

Does Majorca do that?

We have a tax break, but it's not the best one in Spain.

Malta is like really high and that way everybody's filming in Malta in person.

Malta is not Spain, though.

No, I know, but it's.

The Canary Islands have the biggest tax break and that is Spain.

Yeah.

So that's your kind of biggest competition.

So Canary islands have actually 45 to 50%, which is unlikely.

Heard of.

And we have 35, but we have the best crew.

We have the biggest.

So all the productions that are happening in Canary Islands are from production companies that are based in Majorca, which is interesting.

So they have their second office in the Canary Islands.

Like Palma Pictures is the biggest production company here.

And they have an office in Canary Islands.

And so.

But the geography of the Canaries is that.

Isn't it just volcanic in most of the places?

Not everything.

Not everything can be filmed there.

Also, it's very far from Europe.

You know, it's easier for the time.

So they have some here.

So it's not all like they have the tax rebate, but they have their inconvenience.

And here we don't have that much tax reveal.

But the.

It's much more convenient for productions to.

Happen because people are living here.

Yes.

They have an international crew here.

So the crew that you can hire directly here, they speak all three languages, most of them.

Or at least English and Spanish.

Yeah.

So any director can work with them.

And you say all three languages.

German.

Those three are like the predominant ones here.

English, German and Spanish.

Do you know anything about the movie that Morgan Freeman filmed?

What's that about?

What's.

Was it Lioness?

Lioness.

That's a series of Nicole Kidman series.

Yeah.

So they shot part of it in Morocco and part of it here.

It's actually out already.

Is it Netflix?

It was Zoe Zaldana.

No, it's Lioness.

What was it?

It was.

I think it's Paramount.

Plus it's a TV show.

Yeah.

So Nicole Kidman is an CIA agent, whereas Aldana is like her manager who goes out and has to deal with all the bad guys.

Someone said that Tom Hanks was here.

Filming something over the summer he was.

Here a year and a half or so ago in Spain, but not Major.

The Wes Anderson movie.

But that was.

The last person who was here was Tom Cruise came here with his stunt coordinator, but we all don't know what he did here.

But they came twice in like a month.

So they flew over with his own plane from London because he was shooting Mission Impossible, whatever.

And they came here twice in like four weeks.

And we were all like, oh, but we don't know.

Nobody knows.

So in your roles, do you.

Do you help advocate for filming in Mallorca?

Very much so, yeah.

For example, some of the prizes that we give out at the awards ceremony, the best feature film gets a grand of €5,000 from Palma Pictures to encourage the shooting of their next project in Mallorca.

They can already go to Palma pictures and for 5,000 they can rent stuff or do pre production.

That's kind of the push that they get to start production here.

And then we have that for sure.

And other categories.

It's €25,000 in grants to push production.

So when I had the idea of starting the festival, it was sort of like a selfish idea, because myself as a filmmaker, I had a short.

After completing film school in la, I went to the LA Film School and I did my thesis film.

I went to a lot of festivals, and there wasn't a festival in Mallorca.

And I just wanted to kind of come home and show my family my movie.

So I started the festival because I'm like, how can this place not have one?

Every little town in the US has a film festival.

So that's how I started it.

And.

And then I kind of thought about how do I bring myself into this project?

Because this is literally.

It's me.

So I combine everything that I've been through in my life.

So I was born in Germany, I grew up in Mallorca.

I've lived in LA for, at that point, like, 13 years.

That's the evolution of me.

And also we always evolve.

Also the festival.

New stories, new filmmakers.

We grow, we improve.

And I think it's the idea of all of us wanting to evolve in our lives.

Right.

And get better and learn.

And so that's what it's about.

It's an international program.

Yeah, they come from all over the world.

People just enter.

Like, from all over.

Exactly.

So we have a platform online where people submit their films since January, and then from January till August.

And this year we got around 1,200 films from 80 countries.

So how many will you show?

150.

About 10%.

Yeah.

And that is incredible because to think that somebody goes on that page and looks for us.

Because there's also 13,000 festivals in the world right now.

4,000 of those are active and have a certain standard.

But to be chosen by 1,200 people that they send their script or film or documentary to us means that they looked up Mallorca, that they're interested in coming to the island.

So it gives a lot of visibility to the island as well.

Does the island, I mean, does the tourism board help you?

Yeah, yeah.

We get a lot of support from everybody, from the government, the Conseil, the Ayuntamiento.

So you're getting good feeling of the understanding, the value.

They're starting to grow.

Yes.

It seems like they're most concerned with making sure that they get the richest people to come here.

So they want the upper class.

They don't want the masses, they said they want quality instead of quantity.

Yeah.

I mean, for us we are out of season, obviously, although the season goes until the end of the year at this point.

But I think for us the idea is to attract cultural tourism and for people to come here.

And it's still sort of.

I mean, today is a colder day, but it's actually pretty warm still during the festival.

And you can go and have a dip and see and then go and watch movies at night.

And that combination is a certain type of person or tourist that we're attracting that the island really likes.

It's good that you're not having this in July.

No, because the last thing they need is more people in July.

Right.

They need people now.

November, maybe have it in February.

Yeah, exactly.

So are the movie venues in one place or in various places?

We have seven locations.

Oh, cool.

Beautiful locations in Palma.

Does that include the Drive In?

Yes.

Drive in is the only one that doesn't happen in Palma.

Yeah, doesn't it?

All the.

It's very central and we have three cinemas and then we have the opening and then the closing night is at the Palau de Congresos, which is the big modern building that you've maybe seen.

And just.

Yeah.

So there we have a huge closing night that is sponsored by Melia.

Yeah, the openings in Theatre Principal and then Historic Center Palma.

Like historic buildings and kind of right behind the cathedral architecture ACTOR OF Palma and yeah, the scenery is very beautiful.

Like you really get to experience the city going from one location to the next.

Rialto living if you guys haven't been there, you have to go Rialto Living.

So that's a concept store in Palma, and they have a cafe, and it's a store where you can buy anything from a new bag to a beautiful coffee table book, because it's beautiful.

And they're a sponsor of ours, and we hold the Cafe Con there, which is a very popular event at the festival.

It's sort of like a casual coffee that we have with filmmakers.

So everyone.

There's around 100 people, and I bring up people to talk to and have a coffee with the director of the movie that night or something.

It's a very casual, cool event that we have, and that place is just gorgeous, and it's fun.

Can you clarify, again, why somebody would want to come here since there are so many film festivals around?

Oh, why would they come to Evolution Mallorca?

Yeah.

But besides, just.

Sure, yeah.

So I think one of the things that really distinguishes us is obviously the island, but also that we have created, like Maria mentioned before, this very familiar community here.

Like, we're a family, and everyone.

We're very open.

It's very diverse.

We make sure that we have a certain percentage of women filmmakers.

We have a big LGBTQ section in the festival.

Actually, I wouldn't even call it an LGBTQ section because I stopped doing a section for it.

It's just like, there's movies about LGBTQ stories in all of.

They're just in the festival.

It's normal that they're there.

I don't even want to make a section for them anymore.

Percentage, because it's better just.

Yeah.

So it's a very inclusive and diverse community that we've created.

And it's also not always common that somebody like me, who's an expat, creates an event in Mallorca, and the locals flock to it as well.

So that's something that I'm really proud of.

I would call it as the only cultural event in Mallorca that does that, because you have the British tennis tournament, the German golf tournament, but there's not really one event where everybody really comes together.

And I would say Evolution is that, and that's what Evolution is.

We have a community that came together, so we've evolved to the fact that we created this international and welcoming community.

Everybody who has been at the festival, they come back because that's what they love so much about it.

And we're very open.

There is, like, a VIP section.

Everybody's welcome everywhere.

What percentage would you say are locals versus outsiders?

Who come.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

We've been studying the audience we have and it's really 50.

50.

That's kind of what a Belfast is.

All right.

That's what makes us different from just going to the cinema that we actually, after the movies, have a Q and A with the director, with the actors.

So yeah, we do that.

We invite for all the feature films, we invite the directors and the lead actors and for the short films, depending on what kind of press they could bring the festival.

But we extended invitations to everybody and anyway, they come.

Many people come.

We have a screenplay competition and I think we have like 30 people come.

They just have screenplays in the competition.

They're coming to experience the festival, people.

With the music videos and short films.

Everybody comes.

It's crazy.

They want to be part of it.

Yes.